Quest Hub

by Gimmlette

Today's Quest Hub could also cover "Throwback Thursday".

Before the Cataclysm, before Wrath of the Lich King, before Burning Crusades, at the end of the original game, there was a server wide event to open the gates of Ahn Qirag. People collected materials and resources to deliver to the Cenarion Circle in Silithus in order to ring the gong which opened the gates to the 20 and 40 man raid. I was not a part of WOW at that time. I only know the bits I was told. But, long after the gates were opened on each server, through Burning Crusades and Wrath of the Lich King, you could still pick up and do the quests to create the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, the actual tool used to ring the gong and open the gates.

To make the scepter, you needed to go all over the world, collecting materials and fighting bosses. I started on it toward the middle of Wrath of the Lich King before finishing it. The premise was you needed to collect pieces of fire, ice and nature to assemble the scepter. One of the threads took you to Azshara and a shark named "Maws". I don't remember the other one but the nature one had you reclaim a well-known dragon.

I don't remember how I got this, whether I found it in a run of Sunken Temple or somewhere else. I knew this was leading to the final boss fight, the final step for the green shard. I'd done most everything solo. It was very easy to accumulate stuff, even the elementium required for steps in the quest chains. (There were 3 corresponding to the three colors.) I bought a lot of that off the auction house because people were just dumping it and no one wanted it.

In total, there are 18 steps to this final boss fight. At step number 8, you get this quest.

(Yes, I took a screenshot of every step, figuring it was monumental that I could do it and some day, I'd want to remember.)

The agent and I headed to Moonglade from there. Once in Moonglade, there were a series of steps to confront Eranikus. You know Remulos in Moonglade? He has a few quick quests and then you never talk to him again. He factors hugely in the scepter quest line. That really is why he's in Moonglade. He was responsible for calling and then confronting Eranikus. Omen's return during the Lunar Festival is interesting, but you have not lived until you see a green dragon materialize from across Lake Elluneara and come toward Nighthaven.

What was also incredibly cool was that you did this event in real time. Phasing had only started with Wrath so anyone who was in Nighthaven, and this is the druid training area, could see and interact with someone doing this final quest.

I'd had no trouble up to this point. I have a bear. I'm good. How wrong I was. Eranikus attacks Nighthaven and seeks to kill the druids and Remulos in particular. Your task is to keep him alive. Eranikus threw corrupted druids, shadow elves and minions and lots and lots of nature damage at you. I tried to deal with it and several level 50 and lower druids in the area came to help, but we were overwhelmed and killed. Fortunately, you could just run back, talk to Remulos and start the encounter over again. By the 4th wipe, I knew I had to ask my guild for help.

Several people came to help, more out of curiosity at my claims there was a green dragon in Moonglade. We were joined by a bunch of low level toons until we had a nice raid group of 10 people. I started up the encounter and we battled. It went on for a good 10 minutes, wave after wave of mobs, nature damage, dying and running back. It was intense, but so satisfying. In the end, Eranikus is confronted by Tyrande. He claims she abandoned him. She rebukes him and he thanks her for purging his corruption and heads into the Emerald Dream.

It was an amazing fight. I was very sad it was over.

There's not been anything in the game which comes close to the epic nature of this. Oh we had our legendary cloak quest and currently have a legendary ring quest, but they have all been about gathering copious amounts of materials. They don't call on you to go over the whole of an expansion to get things and kill bosses. I know that in addition to the elementium from Blackwing Lair, I had to get drops off certain bosses. When I fought "Maws", I had to make sure I brought friends because the buoy used to summon him was one use. If you failed, you had to make another one.

In downing the bosses, in finding hidden NPCs, in collecting the materials needed, I felt that I really was on a mission, even though the end result was not something I could ever use. It's a mace and hunters can't use maces. You could only equip it when you were going to ring the gong. After that, it was useless. I still have it in my bank. After doing all of that, there is no way I'm ever deleting that thing.

This is the kind of quest that doesn't appeal to a lot of people. I would say most players just want to get their quest, do it and turn it in. Chain quests are of the "ewww" variety. Blizzard has gone to the "collect thousands of things" for legendary items. I don't think a legendary needs to come of a quest line like this. An epic experience that sends you all over the known world battling mobs in dungeons I haven't been in in years appeals directly to my sense of adventure. They take a lot of resources to develop, program and test. That kind of thing is not where Blizzard's focus is. I think the game is a bit diminished because of it.

Throwback Thursday

by Gimmlette

The date on the photo is February of 2010. The location is Moonglade and it's the Lunar Festival. The festival is ongoing right now so I dug through the archives for an appropriate photo. I have vague memories of participating in this in 2007. I started playing in October of 2006, so I'm thinking this was a holiday added from the beginning. I remember running Maraudon with a guild group to find the elder located there. Maraudon is so big. Back then, it was one continuous dungeon, not split like it is now. The elder was, of course, way down at the bottom of the instance. We got so lost.

Back then, there wasn't the bright yellow ! over a quest giver's head. You had to know where the elder was or you had to be willing, in 5-mans, to wander all over to find them. The bright white shaft of light was a dead give away to the presence of an elder, just finding that light was the issue.

For a new player, the Lunar Festival was your first visit to Moonglade, home of the night elf druids. I had no idea where I was on the map. It wasn't until the tail end of Wrath of the Lich King that I figured out how to run into Moonglade from Feralas or Wintersprings. Druids can hearth here and their primary trainers are here. The rest of us had to stumble upon the place ourselves following a road to see where it went.

Omen, the big white two-headed dog who is the "boss" of the holiday, has always been a unique encounter. WOWHead says Omen was added in September of 2006, with a small content patch. I remember this aura which would almost instantly kill anyone under level 60. If you could move fast enough, you could get away from it.  And then there was the starfall. If Omen's aura didn't get you, the stuff falling from the sky would. You had to run away from him to get out of the falling stars. The aura is gone and he now has wolves around the area where he is summoned. Those weren't there originally. I remember when they were added, although I don't recall the year. They like to munch on lower level toons. Now days, Omen is an easy kill.

It's hard to make holiday bosses difficult. If you make them too hard, people coming to the holiday late in its run, won't be able to find a group to kill them. But I have to say that the ease with which Omen and his ilk can be dispatched is something of a downer, when my memories are of falling stars and instantly dying when my level 20 self ran too close to the big white dog.

The Casual Tank

by Reilynnbear

 

I love tanking for my guild and really enjoy almost any tank class I can use. I have played ranged dps as well as healers and melee dps, but I love tanking too much to totally give it up. Now, all I really enjoy playing are my tanks. My other toons will get leveled but my tanks are first to max level, always.

From way back in my Dungeons and Dragons days, I have tanked for groups I have played with. I have played other classes (and have every class as alts). I enjoyed hunters and locks a lot; love the rogue and shaman too, but tanking is in my blood. When I came to World of Warcraft, being a tank just made sense, at least to my train of thought. 

I started really tanking back in Wrath of the Lich King on a death knight that I leveled to level 75 in blood spec. I had no clue how to use frost correctly so I used blood. That gave me more threat than frost tanks, but no dps to speak of. When I couldn’t get the dps I needed out of the death knight, I deleted it and leveled Northernbear, my paladin, who I had left at level 55 to make gear for the dk.  Northernbear has stayed tank ever since. I tried warriors, back in Wrath, but couldn’t understand how to make it work so paladins were all I ever really played as a tank. My friends needed tanks for groups so I wound up with a server full of tanking paladins.

 

I didn’t start to play druids or warriors until Cataclysm came out. I liked both classes, but I still kept the paladin as my main tank. When Mists of Pandaria dropped, the dk, Reilynnbear, became my main tank and has been until today where my warrior, Crissabear, has caught up. My druid, Bearchanges, isn’t far behind now. I have 2 death knights, 3 paladins, 1 warrior and 1 monk. All are tanks. I can’t seem to put any of them aside except the monk. I'm not pleased with how squishy they are in Warlords. He'll get leveled but not for a very long time. 

For me to be the tank means I control the flow of the instance or raid. If you want to move faster than me, in current content, let’s see how long you stay alive. Staying behind me, or any other tank, keeps you alive longer. Most "looking for raid"s blame the tanks when things fall apart. Unless the tank is really lousy or horribly under geared, it’s not their fault things go bad. If the rest of the raid followed accepted raiding rules, they would realize they are the problem. Any decent tank who knows their class can stay alive for most encounters. Put a good healer behind even an average tank and we can do wonders. But if you pull the boss instead of the tank, or if you pull threat off the tank or if you don't move out of stuff, among other things, you shouldn't be blaming the tank for the boss turning and smacking you upside the head. 

 

I won’t tank outside my guild for raids or instances. In my experience, most groups only want to run as fast as they possibly can and I love a slow steady pace so I can control the surroundings and not have them controlling me. The only drawback of doing this is that getting good gear is slow. I make what I can and get what I can when I do raid. Other options for getting gear, if you would prefer to tank for people you know rather than take your luck with a random group, include pvp gear (bought for honor), apexis crystal dailies, and the auction house. By accumulating apexis shards, you can get good gear that will help you stay alive in the first raid, Highmaul, where you can get better gear. The apexis vendors are in Stormshield and Warspear. 

I will tank a looking for raid if my guild makes up a large portion of it, and we do raid that periodically. The LFR gives you the gear between 5-mans and normal/heroic/mythic raiding. Plus, you can use the time to get somewhat familiar with the fights to make tanking them with your guild a bit easier. I like tank new raids with my best friends in WOW, my Guild. If you are comfortable tanking for random groups, I say go for it. It can be very rewarding.

In the coming weeks, I'm going to go over the basics of tanking, as I've come to learn them. I will give you my impressions of the talents and spells we tanks can use; why I chose what I did and what I've found works for me and what doesn't. 

Tanking will always be my love in this game and I won't stop tanking 'til they stop making WOW. I just do things slower than the high end raid tanks do and have no desire to speed the process up. That works with the casual nature of my guild. I hope you'll find it interesting. My hope is that you will give tanking a try. I hope my column will open your eyes as to why some of us love tanking and why WOW needs more of us who do love it. One of the best parts of tanking is that, when you do decide to run a Looking for Group, you get an almost instant queue.